Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served

“Whoa,” Mitchell said, unable to restrain her excitement. “That has to be something, right?”

“Damned if I know, kid. Carla…uh, Captain Reiser…says that 30 percent of the ships coming into this port start out somewhere over there. The big question is why those three ships.”

“You need to track down everything about them,” Rebecca said, making another notation in her pad. “Check the shipping companies, the cargo manifests, the origination and Þ nal destination points, the crew—anything that they might have in common. Jimmy picked up on something. We have to know what it was.”

“Reiser is already on it. I’ll have more information for you to feed into your computers in a day or so.”

“Good,” Rebecca said. “You run with that for now.”

“No problem.” Watts’s tone suggested that he did not mind the assignment.

“Mitchell, what’s your duty status?”

“Dr. Torveau cleared me today,” Mitchell said, unconsciously sitting up straighter in her seat. “All I need is my psych clearance.”

“I don’t know, kid,” Watts muttered. “You could wait a long time for that.”

Mitchell grinned.

“Get it. I want Mitch and Jasmine back in the clubs. With Beecher dead and nothing solid from Port Authority, the only place to shake out a new lead is there.” Rebecca folded her notebook and slid it into the inside pocket of her blazer. “My street sources are coming up empty.

The bust at the video studio has sent people underground, and with the hit on Beecher, it’s not safe for my CIs to do much digging. I don’t want them calling attention to themselves.”

No one at the table looked at Mitchell; everyone knew that Sandy

• 191 •

RADCLY fFE

was one of Rebecca’s CIs. Mitchell pressed her palms hard into her thighs to prevent herself from curling her Þ ngers into Þ sts.

“Saturday night is always a big night at Ziggie’s,” Jason said into the void. “Mitch and Jasmine and the Kings could hit it tomorrow night.

There ought to be enough after-hours activity that no one would notice us asking a few questions.”

“Do it. It’s time to make something happen.”

v

“Just think about it,” Mitchell heard Michael say as she stepped off the elevator.

“Yeah, okay,” Sandy replied hesitantly.

“I mean it. You’d do Þ ne.” Michael turned to the sound of Mitchell approaching. “Hi, Dell. Is the meeting over?”

Mitchell nodded, looking curiously from Sandy to Michael.

Sandy appeared uncomfortable, a distinctly unusual condition for her.

Mitchell had seen her angry, stubborn, even hurt. But almost never uneasy. “What’s up?”

Sandy popped up and hurried down the hall in the direction of the guest room. “Nothing.”

“Something’s going on,” Mitchell insisted as she hustled to catch up.

“I think we should go home,” Sandy said, walking directly to the closet and lifting out her suitcase.

“Me too.” Mitchell sat on the side of the bed, her arms out to either side, watching Sandy pack. “I’m pretty much healed, and it’s time for me to get back to work.”

“Don’t you have to see Cath—Dr. Rawlings too?”

“Yep—Þ rst thing tomorrow.”

“Huh.” Sandy folded one of Mitchell’s white T-shirts and laid it next to a camisole in her suitcase.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Then how come you won’t look at me?” Mitchell frowned. “Did Michael say something to upset you?”

“No,” Sandy snapped.

“Well, it’s something,” Mitchell persisted.

• 192 •

Justice Served

Sandy slammed the dresser drawer hard enough to knock over several bottles of perfume that stood on its top. She whirled in Mitchell’s direction, her eyes glinting with irritation. “If I wanted you to know something, I’d tell you. So stop with the questions.”

Mitchell blinked at the unanticipated assault. Then, in an extraordinarily quiet voice, she said, “I want to know what Michael said that bothered you. If you don’t tell me, I’m going to go ask her.”

“You can be a real pain in the ass, Dell. Once in a while you should just mind your own business.” Despite her words, Sandy’s voice had lost most of its edge.

“You are my business.”

Sandy sighed and joined Mitchell on the bed, her thigh their only point of contact where it lightly touched Mitchell’s. Staring straight ahead, she said in a subdued tone, “She offered me a job.”

“Yeah?” Mitchell said, carefully hiding her surge of excitement.

“How did that happen?”

“She had to drop some papers off at her ofÞ ce the other day when we went shopping for my new outÞ t. While we were there, she showed me around. Innova takes up the whole twentieth ß oor, and you can see everything—all the way to New Jersey—from up there.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah,” Sandy said quietly. “You can tell everyone thought Michael was like…a queen or something. And she was nice to everybody.”

“She’s like that,” Mitchell observed, her hand creeping across the space between them to grasp Sandy’s. “She pays attention to everyone.”

Sandy nodded silently.

“So?” Mitchell asked Þ nally. “What about the job?”

“The guy who runs the supply room—you know, orders all the stuff that everyone needs, like paper and Þ les and even cell phones—is leaving soon. Moving out of state. They want to train a replacement before he goes.”

“So that’s the job?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like that before.” Sandy unconsciously squeezed Mitchell’s hand. “What if I messed it all up?”

“Like how?”

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RADCLY fFE

“I don’t know—ordered the wrong stuff. Or forgot to order something.”

“Well, I suppose you’d just return the wrong stuff and order the right stuff.” Mitchell shrugged. “I bet that happens a lot.”

“There’s computers.”

Sandy said the word as if it were a life-threatening disease.

Mitchell couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

“Shut up,” Sandy snapped, slapping Mitchell’s arm and trying desperately not to smile.

“Honey, look at what I do every day. You don’t think maybe I could teach you what you needed to know?”

“I’ve never had a job. I don’t how how to do it.”

“Well,” Mitchell said softly and kissed Sandy gently on the cheek.

“We’ll just have to teach you. There’s nothing you can’t do, San. I promise.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you.”

Mitchell gaped. “You’re kidding, right?” She tugged Sandy upright and framed her face with both hands. Leaning close, she said very distinctly, “I love you. If you want to try this job, then you should.

You’ll be great. If you don’t want it, then forget it.”

“But you’d like it if I did, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s too dangerous out there, doing what you’re doing for Frye.

I want you to stop. Job or not, I want you to stop.” Mitchell kissed Sandy’s forehead, then her mouth. “If you had another job, you’d feel better about quitting this one.”

“I have some things to Þ nish for Frye, Dell.” Sandy drew away, anticipating Mitchell’s protests.

“Look,” Mitchell said, trying hard to contain both her temper and her fear. “Frye said just this afternoon that the heat is on around this whole Internet porn thing, and that it’s too dangerous for the CIs. She’s going to pull you anyway.”

“Well, she hasn’t yet.” Sandy stood, thinking about her upcoming meeting with Trudy. She had to at least see her, warn her to keep her head down. She resumed packing, pretending not to hear Mitchell’s teeth grinding.